1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method of separating minerals from ore without fluid. The invention also relates to dry separation without water. The invention further relates to gravity separation.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98.
In mining and industrial production, minerals are usually embedded in rocks or exist in the soil. Generally, minerals are exposed through crushing and grinding, and then fluids dissolve the powdered minerals to separate and concentrate the minerals from the other substances in the crushed ore. The prior art system uses the relationship between the different chemicals (with exceptions like iron ore) and minerals to separate and to concentrate the minerals in fluid, until the content of minerals reaches some degree of concentration before they are to be smelted.
Vibrating fluidized beds and wash boxes are usually employed at the moment. Among others, for vibrating fluidized beds, current research primarily focuses on uniformity and drying issues of fine grain particles fluidization. Generally, it is claimed that particles with large density sink to the bottom; however, this principle alone is far from meeting industrialization requirements for consistently separating minerals.
Though wash boxes have been applied by human beings for more than one hundred years, its working principle remains unimproved. Water is necessary as the medium, and manual drive control to the medium is needed. The smallest diameter of a recoverable heavy mineral particle is 0.02 mm, and only small mineral particles can be detected in recovered minerals without indicating the actual recovery rate of small mineral particles. Generally speaking, it is not suitable to operate in conditions where all particles are small particles. Moreover, much ore is required to be crushed to a small size to reach a 90% exposed state in order to separate minerals from the ore.
Thus, inventing a system and method without chemicals, including being capable of separating minerals from ore without water as the medium has become a new development in mineral separation technology.